Mercedes Lackey - Beauty and the Werewolf

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, I’ll always need you,” Sebastian told him, as he rummaged through a drawer for one of the sticks of graphite and a sheet of paper. “Meanwhile, I take it you came to say goodbye?”

Eric nodded brusquely. “I’m spending the night, but I’ll be gone before you’re awake, and I know you — you are going to be working on that business of changing the weather past supper. I want to get to the city in good time to establish myself. If I am going to be representing you, I need to update my wardrobe and hire a few more servants for the town house. I can’t bring important folk to talk and not have enough servants.”

Sebastian nodded absently, his mind clearly already on other things. “Do whatever you need to. We’ll be using the place, anyway, once I alter this curse, and the more you do now, the less you’ll have to do later.” Then he turned away from the diagram he was sketching out, to give Eric a warm smile. “I don’t know what I would have done without you all this time, you know.”

Eric nodded somberly. “All right, then, I’m for an early bed and an early rise. Luck.”

He left before either of them could say anything.

For a moment, just a moment, Bella stared after him, a fleeting thought passing through her mind. Had Eric seemed less than pleased with their plans?

But no, that was ridiculous. Sebastian had trusted Eric all his life — and with his life. Eric could have been rid of Sebastian a dozen times in the past five years, and no one would have faulted him for it.

He’s probably just worried what will happen if Sebastian fails — he must have seen Sebastian’s hopes crushed a hundred times, and he doesn’t want Sebastian hurt anymore. Eric did seem to be the pessimistic sort — certainly the cynical sort.

Well, we will just have to keep at it until we do actually alter the curse. We both know it won’t be easy. But we both know it will be worth it. Eventually Eric will see that, too.

THEY HAD WORKED OVER THE CALCULATIONS AND diagrams for the weather-altering plan until supper and beyond. Eric had been right; the two of them worked feverishly until their stomachs began growling, but they didn’t have to send anyone for food — Sapphire and Azure, the Spirit Elemental who generally attended Sebastian in the workroom, turned up shortly after that with another tray full of little bits of savory things they could just pick up and eat with one hand. This was complicated stuff, and Bella was, quite frankly, thrilled and more than a little frightened that Sebastian had decided that she should help work on it.

He had brought out maps, consulted the Mirror Servant about the usual weather patterns at this time of year, asked him to figure out what, if any, problems a rise in temperature would cause the local inhabitants, then began drawing out the lines of power that ran from the Manor to that part of the Kingdom. And from there, he began making his calculations, with Bella double-checking them. He had to figure out how much change there would be, how fast, for every little rise in the temperature — of course, there was no way to measure the temperature rising, but he didn’t need to be able to do that. What he was using was a day. “If I make the land and air feel like the start of March — the second week of March — the end of March — the beginning of April — ”

Finally, he found the ideal day, the 17th of April. If he caused the entire border on the Waldenstein side to think it was that date, the deep snow that was there now would quickly become mush. The longer he held the spell in place, the more snow would melt, and the deeper the mud would become. Soon it would become impossible for wagons and heavy horses to pass — and if they could not, then so much for the passage of the Waldenstein army.

That took care of the date they needed to match.

Then came a much more mundane calculation — how deeply into Waldenstein lands should he go to make a proper barrier that would serve as a deterrent? He wanted to cover enough territory that it really became a slog, but he didn’t want to affect more than that, because this was going to throw off the whole growing season within that area for at least a year.

Then, because of course, as soon as this started to happen — although it was a very novel technique — Waldenstein magicians would know what he was doing, and try to counter it, he began computing the countermeasures to their countermeasures.

And when all of that was done, the magical parameters had to be calculated all over again, adding the powers and abilities of more magicians.

Eventually, though, they had to stop. “Enough,” he said. “We have enough for the Godmother. There is no point in spending too much time on something she will either approve as it stands, modify or throw out altogether. It is weather magic… It is nothing you trifle with, and for all I know, she’ll decide that instead of being subtle, this situation warrants calling in a flight of dragons — or, more likely, calling a half dozen more Godmothers and setting up a Winter Carnival on the spot.”

“A — You’re joking.” She looked at him askance.

He shook his head. “Not a bit of it. She’s done it before. And who would dare bring an army across a spot full of Godmothers?”

“No one in his right mind,” she agreed, and found herself yawning. “My head is full, and my eyes are starting to close by themselves.”

“Mine, too.” He looked at her across the little table they were working at, and then, unexpectedly, leaned over it and kissed her.

At first, her reaction was surprise. This was not the first time that a man had kissed her — although she had no serious suitors now, she had had three before the twins came of age. Well — they were serious, even if she hadn’t been. One had been a tentative kisser, one a demanding kisser and one had kissed her as if it was a duty.

Sebastian was nothing like any of them. He was confident without being demanding, and although she sensed he would withdraw immediately if she reacted poorly, she could tell he was enjoying this.

So was she…

A wonderful wave of warmth enveloped her.

Quite a lot…

She closed her eyes and leaned toward him, just allowing herself to feel instead of think.

It was very, very nice. It was more than nice. Her lips parted a little, and he licked and nibbled at them, sending all manner of pleasantly thrilling sensations up and down her body and —

Slowly, regretfully, he drew back. “I think I had better — we had better — stop now,” he said. “Before things get quite enjoyable, extremely messy and potentially damaging to glassware and papers.”

Feeling a little dizzy, she realized that she hadn’t taken a breath in quite a while. She did so, and stood up straighter. “Oh, my,” she said. “Ah — yes.”

He blinked at her. “Erm…yes, what?”

“Your question. The one you asked me about. The answer is yes.” She took another deep breath. “I realize that just having been kissed…like that…I am probably not in my right mind to be answering it. But having just been kissed like that more or less is the answer and I — ” It was her turn to blink. “Bother. Too much talk, more kissing.”

And she leaned across the table and kissed him.

The result was not damaging to glassware or papers, although it did take a little careful maneuvering to a spot beside the hearth, a huge, ancient bearskin where they could sit and continue the experience without wreaking havoc. It didn’t — a little to her regret — get to the point where there was clothing flying about, but it did get to the point where buttons were unbuttoned, some laces were undone, and there was a certain amount of damage to hair and quite a bit of skin exposed. There was not enough goings-on to have caused a torch-bearing mob to descend in fear of werewolf cubs appearing in a few months, but there was enough to make her quite, quite certain that the first kiss had not only not been a fluke, it was the harbinger of better things to come.